----- Original Message ----- From: "Wolfgang Lenerz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 10:10 AM Subject: Re: [ql-users] Source Code
> On 18 May 2002, at 1:22, Jeremy Taffel wrote: > > > Wolfgang, A lengthy response, please don't flame, I would appreciate a considered response. .snip > > > I think that he has some valid points which you don't seem to have > > understood. > Thanks.Why is it that I'm not supposed to have understood things > when I just don't agree with the opinions expressed. Because instead of answering in a civil an unemotional way you get provoked into escalating the flame wars, and often don't address the legitimate (in their minds) concerns of some of those that ry to debate this. ...snip >>......He therefore cannot guarantee support, or to > fix problems. He helps where he can, and in the spirit of GNU etc, he makes > the information available so that technically advanced users can help > themselves. > So he wants to program something, but not support it later on. > Nice. That is not what I said. With the best will in the world, the key word here is "guarantee". I know from personal experience that Richard, (and probably the others giving you grief on this list) provides exceptional support. You must know, however, how many platforms (and OS's) UQLX runs under, and any problems arising from unusual combinations of hardware and OS could take a long time for any individual to bottom out, especially if he hasn't got the access to that hardware. I imagine that similar guarantees are probably just as problematical with QPC given the variety of hardware and software drivers etc running Windows. Any such guarantees are essentially dishonest, and are only ever "best efforts". That should be recognised, otherwise we should be asking questions like "how quickly can we expect to get the bugs fixed?" We don't because we are reasonable people. However some people when they read the licence interpret it literally. I was making a serious point and received an unwaranted (in my opinion) sarcastic glib response. This really is not necessary. > > >. > > > He cannot merely do his best, but he has to give an open-ended > > commitment to provide support -something that few if any software vendors > > would do. He isn't even allowed to provide effective support -emailing > > patches, assistance over the phone of how to hack a config file ....outlawed > > by the proposed licence. > We are looking into the email aspect. > Moreover, I think your comments very clearly outline one of the > aspects I care about. > He 'or anybody else) can send the source code to interested > parties. If they can compile the source code, then they probabbly > will only need minimal support, if any at all. > However, the "normal" end user won't be able to compile it - but he > would need support. UQLX is distributed as source, and in my experience most if not all Linux users are familiar with make-files. So lets see.. provided the developer provides the necessary compiler/cross-compiler and makefile(s) for the platform, he can freely distribute it as a set of source files. Sounds like open source to me. Only leaves the problem of how to get you to accept it into an official version (don't flame -see later comments). >So he doesn't get access to the binaries in > the first case - and won't need support either. The scheme as it > stands now provides for both cases - you can't just let the binaries > out in the open, have end users play around with it and them leave > them without support. We are still waiting on this list for a definition of "support". It seems to be absolutely essental, but totally undefined! It seems, however to underpin most of your defence of the approach being taken. > > Furthermore having expended much time and effort -and potentially money if > > he has to buy hardware, or technical consultancy to enable him to provide > > the support, you can pull the plug at any time by tearing the licence up . > That's true. What would be my interest in doing so? > But what's to stop you? I think that part of your role is to provide the reassurance that you are aiming to act in an inclusive manner, not exclusive; also to provide objective criteria for inclusion of new offerings. e.g. coding style, completeness, compatibility, maintainability, documentation, personality (just kidding - but without any of the other information how do we know what criteria will be used?). It is very clear to me that you accept input from some people on this list (Tim Swenson, for example) extremely civilly, and do actually take some of their comments on board. Others, you seem to dismiss out of hand, and none too politely. Perhaps you have a past history of disagreement with those characters; I know they can be rather blunt, but I can't say that I blame them for getting paranoid. > > Oh? What wider audience? DO you really mean that letting an > unsupported OS float around the shareware scenen would make for > a wider audience? An open source operating system with as many useful and different ideas as this would get a wider audience provided that some essential difficiencies (filesystem, internet oriented applications etc) were sorted. So, perhaps not in its current guise, but if it were to develop the way that I (and I imagine, you) would hope, then yes. Otherwise it is dead, and all this discussion is just so much pointless hot air! > > p.s. Most unix distributions include an emulators package these days. Think > > how many extra users we might end up with (or ex-users that return) if we > > could get them to add UQLX +SMSQ etc into that package? > I know exactly how many : none. I don't agree -see above However, I am an eternal optimist, and I do hope that a compromise can be found which will enable us to keep (get back) all our hardware and software developers - We just cannnot afford to lose them. Nasta's proposal that we split out a core common to all platforms from the rest, is worthy of consideration . Perhaps this sounds too much like the Linux to you (you taking the Linus Torvalds role as "custodian of the kernel", but potentially losing control of the rest)? and also please, please, please 1) A definition from you of the sort of support expected of developers and resellers. Without it, it seems that much of your rationale for wording of the licence as you have, vapourises. 2) the objective set of criteria that you proposet to use in determining which code gets included. I personally believe that if those had been addressed early on, the paranoia would not have set in. Jeremy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
